Sleeping Arrangement
by bloodydisaster
Summary: In which Scaramouche contemplates bed-sharing and the Dreaming gets out of hand. oneshot.


Scaramouche curled up on her side, her back facing Gaz, and concentrated on his breathing.

"...listen to the madman..." he mumbled in his sleep.

Sharing a bed still felt new to her, it was one of the many things she hadn't gotten used to yet. Gaz didn't seem to have any problems with it. But he always fell asleep so fast, he probably never lay awake long enough to think about it. It was different with Scaramouche, it always took her a while to drift off. Which was why she had had a little to much time laying in bed and thinking about their sleeping arrangement.

She couldn't figure out if she preferred having a bed to herself or not, and it bothered her. It wasn't that she would kick Gazza out if she decided that sleeping alone was easier, of course not. Scaramouche loved that stupid boy and even she wasn't that cold hearted. But it just bothered her that she didn't _know._

There were both pros and cons to this whole sharing business. It would probably take her a while to sort through them all and make the final decision.

Warmth. That was a big pro.

The weather had gotten increasingly hotter and dryer over the last couple of centuries, making it possible to wear short skimpy outfits most of the year, but also creating an awful contrast at night, when the temperature would drop suddenly with no clouds around to keep the warmth. Scaramouche hated the cold, she needed warmth to fall asleep. Which was why she had used her new status as Wielder Of The Holy Axe and The Dreamers Bad-Arsed Babe, to gather an almost ridiculous amount of blankets for their mattress, making it resemble a nest more than anything else. She didn't really need that many blankets with Gaz sleeping right next to her, he was always warm and had quickly learned not to comment when she snuggled close.

"...even the losers get lucky..." Gaz interrupted.

Then there of course was the dreaming. Big, big con.

Scaramouche should have seen it coming. He was called the Dreamer for a reason, of course he would have dreams. And he was always talking, singing, humming, making _sounds_. So why had she expected such a simple thing as sleep to quiet him?

The Dreamer talked in his sleep. Random words and phrases, like the ones that sometimes slipped through his control when he was awake. Though it was annoying, she had thankfully gotten used to his occasional mutterings, to the point where she almost didn't notice it anymore. The real problem was the rare times it got worse than that. The muttering would pick up in frequency and he would start to twist and turn in his sleep, until it culminated in him yelling some theoretically important phrase, jerking both of them awake in the process.

Luckily this didn't happen very often, otherwise she might have had to consider sleeping elsewhere. So far it had only happened twice...or rather thrice. If his uneven breathing and the shortening timespan between his mutterings was any indicator. He could be waking any minute now.

The first time it had happened, Scaramouche hadn't reacted very well to being woken in the middle of the night. Her built-in reaction was to start yelling, which had turned out to be a big mistake. He had long since gotten used to her bitching, so instead of repenting his actions he started explaining his dream. It was a long and extremely weird dream, even by Gaz standards. In the end she had been forced to distract him, to make the nonsense talk stop. Not that the distraction hadn't been enjoyable, very enjoyable actually, but she couldn't do that every time his dreaming got out of hand. With all the drama going on during the day, they both needed their sleep.

Which was why she simply pretended to be asleep the second time. It worked surprisingly well. It only took him a moment to shake of the dream and even out his breathing. Then he had softly kissed her forehead, pulled her close and went back to sleep. Though she would never admit it out loud, forehead kissing and arms wrapped around her were definitely pros.

Scaramouche turned until she was facing Gaz again, and looked at the restless boy with concern. It was impossible to make out what he was saying by now, all she caught was small whimpers. Meanwhile his trashing was quickly getting worse than ever. Shouldn't he have woken up before it got this bad? She reached over and brushed some hair out of his face, barely managing not to get hit by his flying limbs in the process. She was beginning to consider waking him up herself, when his entire body suddenly jerked in the same direction, resulting in him rolling of the bed.

It was just a mattress, so the fall wasn't as dramatic as it could have been, but the shock was still enough to wake Gaz. Scaramouche raised herself on her elbows and looked over the edge of the bed – mattress, waiting for his reaction. To her surprise, there weren't any. His eyes were open, but he just lay on the floor for several minutes, unmoving, while breathing like he had just run a marathon.

Deciding that Gaz being this quiet for so long was freaky, she crawled to the edge of the mattress, the shuffling of blankets sounding loud in the silence.

"Gaz?"

He finally sat up, looking...surprised? - it was hard to tell in the darkness. And then he looked relieved to see her. The relieve was oddly clear, even in the dark.

He moved, too fast for her still sleepy brain to follow, and suddenly his arms were around her waist and his face was buried against her stomach and...and Scaramouche wasn't really sure what had just happened, but she was working on figuring it out when she realized that he was trembling.

Gazza was actually trembling. And she had no idea how to deal with that.

Of all the people in the world, she was probably the one least capable of dealing with that. Once, she had even made a couple of Ga Ga preteens cry, just by looking at them. She remembered laughing afterwards.

Searching her brain for anything to do, Scaramouche ended up patting him awkwardly on the back of his head. It went better than expected, and not knowing what else to do she tried it again.

Weren't there anybody else awake that she could ask for help? Apart from the Bohemians that had been drinking through the night, of course. Or, actually, some of them was surprisingly wise when drunk...

And how would she go about asking them? Say "there, there" kick the boy of and flee the room? _That's just bloody brilliant Scara_, she internally berated herself.

The silence was beginning to bother her. Having been around Gaz for as long as she had, she was not used to it. Maybe it was about time she said something.

"Bad dream?" she asked hesitantly, and almost cringed at how loud her voice was.

He nodded weakly against her stomach, but didn't say anything. That was good, she decided, no words, but it was at least a kind of reaction.

He seemed to be getting better. Although still trembling a little, his breathing had returned to normal, and he weren't clinging to her with a death grip anymore. It could have been much worse, she reasoned, not that the trembling wasn't horrifying in itself, but there could have been crying. She wasn't really sure how she would have reacted to crying, it probably wouldn't have been pretty.

The hair patting thing was working out surprisingly well. She had figured out that it went better when she didn't think about it, and just let her hands move on their own. Her fingers seemed to automatically know what they were doing, and was now running through his hair, in what she really hoped was a soothing manner.

This whole business could actually be tolerable, if it weren't for the bloody silence, Scaramouche decided. It was beginning to seriously freak her out. She couldn't wrap her mind around the fact, that she for once would have to break it, Gaz normally did that long before it became a problem. He actually hadn't said anything since waking up. That realization was somehow more frightening than the idea of crying had been.

"Gazza?"

He moved his head a little, as if to show that he was listening.

"...Do you want to talk about it?" she visibly winced at how out of character the words were. The fact that she actually managed to say it without sarcasm, was a clear sign of how desperate she was quickly becoming.

Gaz seemed to be thinking along the same lines, cause he let go of her and straightened 'til he was sitting upright on the floor again.

"No." He answered and ran a hand through his disheveled hair. Scaramouche caught herself studying the movement, and forced her eyes to focus on something else.

She could just make out the familiar shape of her guitar over his shoulder, it was leaning reassuringly against a wall were she'd left it. She automatically felt better and relaxed a little. If Gazza would just get back in bed and go to sleep again, the situation would officially be handled. Scaramouche felt oddly proud of herself.

"Gaz...It's the middle of the night, and I'm tired and cold." she said, tugging at his hand. He obediently let her pull him onto the mattress and laid down again, but didn't relax.

"I'm sorry." he said sounding guilty. The words hang ominously in the air, making Scaramouche sigh.

He shouldn't be saying sorry.

Being the Dreamer had giving him many little annoying quirks, a fact she of course hadn't failed to bitch about. But then on the other hand, she liked bitching. She had spent years perfecting it and would definitely miss doing it, if he somehow made her source of annoyance go away. And that would be extremely creepy; Gazza without the Dreaming. No sudden outburst of crazy, no phrases no-one understood, no singing or humming or muttering or horrifying dancing...He wouldn't really be Gaz then, would he?

He shouldn't be saying sorry for being himself...okay, maybe when he tried to play hero, or was obnoxiously smug, because he had dreamed something important. But not when it was just the Dreaming acting out, not when he didn't have any control over it.

Especially not when he had just woken up trembling, because he'd had a bad dream.

Scaramouche of course couldn't tell him that. She had trouble with words. Saying anything that sounded even remotely emotional, was almost physically impossible without sarcasm.

Instead she reached over and tugged at his hand again. It took a moment, but he deciphered what she wanted from the pulling and wrapped an arm around her waist. He was still too tense for her liking, if he was going to get any sleep he would have to loosen up. Hesitantly, she found the back of his head and started running her fingers through his hair. He reacted by pulling her closer and burying his face against the side of her neck. His breath tickled and something about the intimacy made her blush, but at least he was relaxed now.

She busied herself with the hair stroking, while listening to his steadily slowing breathing. How often did he have bad dreams like this? It could of course be a new thing, just memories plaguing him. Being arrested and interrogated by Khashoggi and then the following attack on the Heartbreak Hotel, would have been enough to ruin anybodies sleep. But there hadn't been any nightmares before now, and it was almost a month ago. It was much more likely that the bad dreams were just yet another downside to being the Dreamer. He would have had to experienced it before then, and still hadn't gotten used to it, judging by how shaken he had seemed. The mental image of Gaz, viciously trembling all alone in the dark, made Scaramouche shiver and she twisted her neck to kiss his forehead, more for her own sake than his. He didn't notice, already sleeping soundly.

In the beginning she had envied how easily he fell asleep. But in reality, with all the trouble the voices gave him during night, anything else would have been cruel.

She stilled her hand and twisted carefully in his grip, trying to get more comfortable without waking him. Something along the lines of a chuckle hit her neck, and Gazza mumbled what sounded suspiciously like "fandango". She involuntarily smiled. Talking felt odd against her skin, but not in a bad way, she could get used to it.

Scaramouche eventually drifted of like that, warm arms around her and small puffs of air constantly brushing her neck, dully wondering were this was supposed to go on the pro and con list.

**A/N: My family went to London and saw WWRY just before easter (best Christmas present ever) and since we came home I've felt like I needed to do something, to show my love for the show...apart from listening to the soundtrack over and over again. This is what I ended up with.**

**Much love to Hannah Jane Fox and Tony Vincent and everybody else who've had anything to do with WWRY...and QUEEN! of course**, can't believe I almost forgot Queen...


End file.
